


Anatomy of a Lie

by Butterfly



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-14
Updated: 2004-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:43:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly/pseuds/Butterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser twists himself into a circle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anatomy of a Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Post- _Hunting Season_.

I don't often lie. It truly isn't as essential as most seem to believe. I have gone for stretches of years without directly lying. Of course, I've also gone for periods of weeks without speaking to anyone but Dief, who would know I was lying, which would render the exercise rather pointless.

And though I lie rarely, I do prevaricate far more frequently. It's simple enough to say something true yet misleading.

And in certain situations, it's far safer to... equivocate. Far safer to simply tell Ray that I have 'feelings' without divulging content or adding the correct context. Thus, I see how he feels by how he interprets my words.

Ray Kowalski is, I fear, still in love with his ex-wife, still seeking her in each new woman that he desires. Perhaps I'm mistaken and he simply has a 'type' -- cool in manner, deceptively fragile in appearance, and very blonde. Perhaps.

I only have one of the primary attributes that he seeks, and even that one is something that he can disintegrate in a matter of moments. I believe... I know that my desires, though possibly not distressing to Ray, are not ones that he would share. He speaks of women, tells me that he knows that I do not think of them, but I don't believe that he fully takes in his own words. He'd feared that Denny had bamboozled me, thought that I'd been attracted to Maggie and to Luanne.

Ah, Ray, don't you know my type? Dark hair, independant and take-charge nature and, most importantly, someone perceptive enough to look beyond the uniform and the 'thank you's. And of my requirements, Ray meets all but one, and that the least important. Ray sees me and doesn't flinch at the sight.

I have never known anyone quite like Ray Kowalski. The only other person who affected me this strongly was not meant for me, I know that now. Though I can still feel her hand in mine some nights, when the loneliness is particularly strong, I do know that I could not have made a life with Victoria, no more than I could with any of the various women who have shown willing. Francesca... I think that I could've loved her if she'd wanted it just a little less. If she demanded less than a white knight, a shield, a guard to keep away the world that doesn't understand. Ray Vecchio stood as that shield most of her life and when he left, she had to face the world without protection. Since then, she has grown into a woman that I would be attracted to, if I didn't already know her.

Yet I do, far too well, and I know that we would never be happy together. I could never make her happy. No more than I could Victoria or Janet or Meg... Inspector Thatcher. Of the three women who penetrated the armour most deeply, Victoria's love was too broken, Janet's caring too new and flimsy, and Inspector Thatcher simply never could be happy in the life that I long for.

That's the true breaking point -- none of these women who care for me, care for the life I need. Yet, that is part of who I am, and I cannot abandon it.

Compromise for love and companionship? Easily done. Change what makes me who I am? Impossible.

I am a Fraser, but I am also a Pinsent. My father defined loyalty by ideals and laws, but my mother... more than anything, she loved my father and myself. My father was loyal to ideas, to beliefs. My mother was loyal to people. Both of them intensely moral, in their ways, but strikingly different in how they approached life. For the most part, I have followed my father's way, the Fraser way, the way my grandmother taught me.

Once, I chose a person over law, over friendship, and over reason. It was a mistake. Leaving with her would have been the worst mistake of my life.

And yet, selfish though it is, there are still nights when I wish that Ray had allowed me to make it.

Foolish though it is, I would make that choice again, if the right person asked. As with Victoria, I can easily imagine calling in sick to spend a day with my Ray. He would wear my Stetson and I would tease him -- tell him that he'll get hat-hair and then he'd have to emigrate lest the station see. He'd then tell me that I was behaving in an entirely unMountie-like fashion and I would return the favor by undressing him and making him beg me to taste him. I would stroke my hand through his wonderful, experimental hair and consider myself blessed.

I can also far too easily imagine myself running toward him, praying that my hand reaches his, knowing that nothing else matters. Knowing that no bond or oath or loyalty means as much as that connection.

The difference lies not in me but in him. Ray would never ask me to betray what I've been taught and what I believe is right. Ray would never put him in a position to choose between himself and my other loyalties.

More importantly, Ray is not in love with me, and doesn't even know that he could ask these things of me.

Oh yes, Ray, we both have feelings.

They just aren't the same ones.

  
_the end_   



End file.
